Butter Chicken

Basically chicken is one among the things that doesnt have any aroma of its own and goes well with any spice added to it. Hence it can be prepared like pepper chicken, chilli chicken. Butter chicken is the easiest one to prepare and even kids would love eating them. This creamy texture and taste can very well goes with roti, naan, parotta or even jeera rice.My kid Haricharan normally doent like any spicy dish. He tried it with rotis and he liked it a lot. Here is the simple recipe to make it.

Ingredients

• Chicken - 250 gms
• Butter - 2 tbsp
• Ginger garlic paste - 1 tbsp
• Cashews - 6 to 8
• Milk - 1 cup(preboiled and cooled)
• Onion - 1 small sized (optional)
• Tomato - 2 medium sized
• Tomato sauce - 1 tbsp
• Kasoori methi (dried)- 1 tsp
• Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
• Garam masala - 1 tsp
• Coriander powder - 1/2 tsp
• Oil - 1 tbsp

Cooking steps

• Cut Onions, tomatoes and chicken into small  pieces and keep aside
• Grind cashews with little milk(1 tbsp) to a fine paste in a blender/mixer.

• Add tomato sauce and ground cashew paste in milk and mix well and keep aside

• Add chilli powder, coriander powder and garam masala and mix well

• In a preheated frying pan, Add a tsp of butter and let it melts.

• Add chicken in tawa and make a quick stir.
• Add salt and garam masala to the chicken and let it cook completely and keep aside.

• Add a tbsp of butter to the same tawa.
• Then add onion and fry till it is transparent.

• Add ginger garlic paste to the fried onion and stir well.
• Add  the sliced tomato and cook till the raw smell disappears completely.

• Now simmer the stove and slowly add milk mixture and make sure the milk is not curdling.

• Add fried chicken to the mixture and stir well

• Add 1 tbsp of butter and switch off the stove
• Garnish with kasoori methi.

My 2 cents

• Adding onions are purely optional. I added this since i like onion aroma in the butter chicken.You can puree the tomato and add it.
• I used salted butter so skipped to add salt in the final gravy.

Wheat Parantha

Wheat Parantha

Almost everyone loves to eat parantha. Making parantha in all purpose flour is very very easy. Maida parantha is a bit high caloried and my hubby doesnt prefer maida for making any dish. He would love to have the wheat version of any food. Even if its appam, poori or anything, he would ask me to try with wheat only. He is very fond of the dishes made with wheat. So he asked me to try the parantha in only wheat flour and that came out well. I found this recipe is much simple than the other tricks for making soft paranthas.Here is the recipe. 

Ingredients

Wheat - 2 cups ( for 5 paranthas)
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Water - as required
Oil - as required.

Cooking steps

• Sift wheat flour in a large bowl and add salt with it.
• Slowly add water and make the dough like chappathi dough and add 1 tbsp of oil and keep it aside for 30 mins.
• Divide the dough into 5 bigger balls ( 7 - 10cm diameter approx).
• Take a large plate and turn it to the back and place a wheat flour ball on it. 
• Gently start rolling the ball into a circle shape using rolling pin and make a bigger circle on the dough till the end of the plate.( Rolled out dough is now thin as paper) 
• Grease the dough with a tsp of oil and then grease with wheat flour(Do not avoid this step. By doing so, you can get the layers on the parantha).

• Slowly make pleates from one side of the circle to the other. 
• Now slowly stretch the pleated dough lenghwise. This should result as twice as the original pleated dough length.
• 
• Holding one end of the roll, start rolling the other end to form round shape.(roll like a swiss roll
• 
• Gently press the rolled out dough using rolling pin to get little bigger than the prior circle.
•  
• Fry both the sides of the rolled out dough in a hot tawa and make the parantha ready. you can see the layers appear while frying the parantha. 
• 

My 2 cents

• You can make maida parantha using the same method also.
• To get more softer paranthas you can add curd also.

Macaroons

Macaroons

Macaroons

I would be very very happy to post this macaroon receipe. Making macaroons at home is my dream right from my childhood days. Tuticorin macaroons are the best in india. Whevever we go to our granys home, we would buy a bunch of macroons and enjoy having them little by little. Making them at home is always special. I know the bakers make cakes with egg as one among their ingredients. I was wondering how they are making  this special thing with only beaten egg, few nuts and sugar. But now I did it. I feel like I ve done the toughest thing of the baking. I have done a lot of trails to make this one success. My hubby and my kid gave me a helping hand. All you need is a whisk to beat the eggs to raise like a foam. The following recipe yiels 25 medium sized macaroons.

Ingredients

Eggs - 2 no.s
Sugar - 1/2 cup(150gm approx.)
Cashew - 10 no.s( i used less cashews)

Cooking steps

1. Break the eggs and extract only egg whites.( If you have refrigerated the eggs, take them out 30mins before you make them. you cant get macaroons batter when you whisk cold eggs). 
   
2. Powder sugar and keep aside
3. Coarsely powder the cashews and keep aside ( i used my mortar and pestle to powder them).
4. Take a large bowl and put egg whites in it. slightly turn the bowl as shown in the pic.(you cannot get foam if you keep the bowl straight.The concept is to take the air and make the egg to have the air inside to form foams).
5. Using the whisk slowly beat the egg whites in circular motion till you get the complete foam. (do not stop whisking at any stage. i know its harder to whisk continuously)
6. 
7. Slowly add tsp by tsp of powdered sugar and beat the egg continuously( do not add sugar more than a tsp at a time. This will make the eggs to acquire running consistency at once)
   
8. To ensure the consistency of final batter, turn the bowl upside down and make sure the foams will not drop down. Stop whisk at this stage.
   
9. Add the the powdered cashews just before piping
10. Preheat oven to 160 deg celsius
11. Fill up the piping bag and slowly make macaroons in shell form in the baking sheet.
    
12. Place the baking sheet in the middle rack and bake till the tip of the macroons is crispy(it took 25 mins approx to bake).
    
13. Allow the macaroons to cool down for 5 mins and keep it in airtight container.
    

My 2 cents

• For coloured macroons, you can add food colors also before start beating eggs.
• you can use electric whisk also. Hand whisk is bit harder , but if you make lesser then use hand whisk.
• I do not have a large piping bag, so rolled a newspaper like cone and used for piping the macaroons

Instant Honey Candy

Instant honey candy

Honey candy

Every kid loves candy and my kid charan is not an odd one. He is very fond of honey also. I know honey is good for health and we cannot make any candy with honey itself.
Last month when we had gone for winterlude, we enjoyed having maple candy which is made of hot maple syrup filled on the snow bed and then rolled like a candy. By looking at them, I just got an idea of making the honey candy for my kid. Once I reached home, I tried with snow and that came out well.I planned to try it using ice bar so only i can make the same even after we reach india. So I tried it with ice bar and that came out so well. Its a very easy one and can be made within 5 mins. Charan enjoyed it a lot. Here is the recipe. 

Ingredients

Honey - 4 tsp ( for 4 candies)
Ice cube/bar - 1 (large)
sticks - 4

Making Steps

1. Place the large ice bar in a tray.
2. Pour a tsp of honey on it and wait till it become solid( within 1 min)
   
   
   
   
   
3. Place the stick at the centre and slowly roll it for a candy shape.

My 2 cents

Melts in time, so have it once its done, else refrigerate and have later.

Jangiri

Jangiri

Jangiri is a popular indian dessert, dindigul is very famous for Jangiri in Tamil Nadu. Whenever I go to by hubby's home town, we stop at dindigul specially for this Jangiri, made hot in the evenings. This is my long term goal to make good jangiris and here I give the recipe for one such good attempt. 

Jangiri

Ingredients

Urad dal - 1 cup
Rice flour - 1/2 cup
Corn starch - 1/2 cup
Food colour - a pinch (optional)
Salt - a pinch
Baking soda - a pinch
Sugar - 1 and 1/2 cup
Oil - to deep fry
Rose essence - 1/4 tsp

Cooking steps

1. Soak urad dal in water for 1 hour and keep aside
2. In a wide bottomed pan, Add sugar and add 1/2 cup of water to it and boil it till one string consistency is reached.
3. Add rose essence and turn off the stove and keep aside.
4. Grind urad dal by adding water very little by little and the batter should not be in running consistency.
5. Keep the urad dal batter in a bowl and add rice flour, food colour and corn starch and prepare the batter.
6. Add a pinch of salt and baking soda also.
7. Mix well and keep the batter little fluffy
8. Fill the squeeze bottle with the batter to make the Jangiri
9. In a wide bottomed tawa, Add oil upto 1/2 inch height of the tawa and let it be hot
10. Pour the batter from the squeeze bottle into the hot oil and make the small flower like jangiris
11. To ensure the jangiri is fried well, touch the jangiri with the fork and if its crispy, then take them out and drain the excess oil in a tissue paper and put the jangiri in sugar syrup(approximately 10 mins) and take the jangiri out and keep it in air tight container to maintain its cr

My 2 cents

• Keep the sugar syrup little warm till the end of the process. Otherwise it will caramalize.
• If its getting caramalized, add little hot water and boil again to maintain the consistency.
• Use hand whisk or fork to beat the batter to keep it little fluffy
• Keep oil in medium to high flame till you complete making jangiris

making sugar syrup

soaking urad dal

grind the urad dal

Add food colour

Add rice and corn flour